


old light

by Errantmushroom



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bff!Kay, Coach!Malbus, Drinking, F/M, K2SO and Bodhi ship it, Professor!Îmwe, Romance, Roommate!Bodhi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-10 16:41:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8924491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Errantmushroom/pseuds/Errantmushroom
Summary: “Hey, wait,” She doesn't kick him a third time.  She'll save it for if he rolls his eyes at her again.  “What's your name?”
 
“You've been sitting next to me all semester and you don't know my name?” He says.  “We worked on a project together last month.  We've exchanged emails.”
 
(Or Jyn is forgetful and Cassian is really good at taking notes and everyone gets sick sometimes.)





	

Jyn Erso has been sick the entire week but she'll be damned if she forks over the cash at a clinic only for them to throw a handful of antibiotics at her and hope her cough goes away in less than ten days.

 

That and her fever is gone and her mother always said- _well_ , as though it really matters what the dead have to say about head colds.

  
So she's back in class the following Monday and the boy who sits closest to her is studiously ignoring her existence because what else is new?  She thinks he's likely got to work on his people skills.

  
She decides to help him with that.

  
The first kick she administers to his shin isn't very hard and it earns her a quick glare that says he did not like that one bit and _don't you dare do it again_.  She files away that bit of information and then promptly ignores it.

  
The second kick’s got more bite and earns her a hiss of curses.

  
Jyn has had plenty of practice with this bit. She cocks her head and puckers her lips and throws her brows up.  She is the picture of befuddled innocence.

  
Mr. Anti-social isn't buying it.  “ _What_ do you _want_?”

  
“I haven't been in class for a while.”

  
“ _So_?”  He clearly does not believe this information warranted not one but two assaults to his person, if the scowl on his pretty face is anything to go by.  It probably isn't.

  
Jyn huffs.

  
The boy rolls his eyes and turns away.

  
“Hey, wait,”  She doesn't kick him a third time.  She'll save it for if he rolls his eyes at her again.  “What's your name?”

  
“You've been sitting next to me all semester and you don't know my name?”  He says.  “We worked on a project together last month.  We've exchanged _emails_.”

  
Her lip twitches.  She most certainly cannot tell him that she's been referring to him mostly as Mr. Anti-social and Tall, Dark and Brooding all semester.  Instead she flounders. Lots of ums, ahs, wells.  “Terrible with names, sorry.”  She finally spits out and, Christ, when did she become the one with the social impediment?

  
“Right.”

  
“So?”

  
“If you wanted to borrow my notes, you could've just said so.”

  
“What? No.  That's-that’s just so far off base.  It's like, it's like in another galaxy, okay, um-”  She shoots him a very meaningful glance.

  
“Cassian.”

  
_Cassian_.  Of course.  How she could forget that entirely pompous Narnia name she will never understand.  Her mouth is an ‘oh’ and Cassian does not look impressed.

  
“So, if that's all?”  He makes to go back to looking at anything but her and she inhales deep and slow.  Cassian - 1.  Jyn - 0.  Fuck.

  
“Actually, Cassian, about those notes.”

 

 

 

  
It turns out that Cassian takes notes with military precision and handwriting that looks like it comes straight from a typewriter.  She considers asking him if he is perhaps an android designed to collect information from slacker college kids but decides this would be in poor taste.  He is the reason she passes the quiz on Friday, after all.

  
There is a party that her roommate inadvertently invites her to that isn't hosted by a frat.  Jyn considers this a blessing from the heavens (a non frat party and acing a quiz all in one day seems pretty close to a blessing if she's ever seen one).

  
Bodhi looks at her like he regrets playing tag-along the moment Jyn coughs all over his new sweater.  Despite the fact that her head cold still has not gone away and she should probably be resting, she is three quarters to properly sloshed when she runs into Prince Narnia himself.

  
‘Runs into’ is defined as such: she is swaying gently atop a chair to a hip hop song that is nearly over, and she's been staring hard at the boy across the room for the nearly three minutes when it blearily clicks into place that she knows him.

  
She hops down from the cushioned seat and launches herself through the throng of partygoers so quickly that all Bodhi has time to do is shout a dismayed, “Hey!”  And he's lost her entirely.

  
Jyn doesn't stop until she's standing so close to him that their shoulders brush.

  
“So you _can_ actually smile!”

  
Cassian is pressed into a corner with someone who is surprisingly taller than he is.  And he had indeed been smiling, though it promptly disappears with Jyn’s declaration.

  
“Jyn.”  He nods.

  
“Who’s your friend?”

  
The aforementioned friend is much more fashionable than Cassian.  Their hair is dyed silver and they are all dressed in black with a bit of metal looped through their left nostril.  

 

They raise a single eyebrow.  “No need to introduce us, I'm sure you'll only forget my name as soon as you're told.” They sniff. “If you'll excuse me, I think I'm in need of a refill.”

 

For her credit, Jyn doesn't flinch.  If she were slightly less drunk and slightly more sensitive, she might have been offended.  As it stood, she couldn't bring herself to care one way or the other.

  
Cassian shrugs.  “Sorry about Kay.”

  
“Nah, don't be. I'm a sucker for brutal honesty.”  And she's grinning, because it's the truth, but also because she's here and so is Cassian and there's something she likes about that that she just can't put her finger on right now.  “So does this mean you tell people about me?”  The thought makes her cheeks warm.  Or the alcohol does.  She's having trouble telling the difference right then.

  
“There's other people out there just as forgetful as you are, Erso.”

  
“So just everyone you meet forgets your name as soon as you tell them, then?”

  
Cassian’s lips curve upwards, just a small smile, and he shakes his head.  “I'm going to need more to drink if I'm going to have to deal with you, aren't I?”

  
“Don't worry, I've got you covered.”  Jyn’s fingers are wrapped around the neck of a small bottle of tequila, still more full than empty.  She presents it like a gold medal and Cassian rewards her with a head tossed back, shaking shoulders laugh that is actually terribly contagious.

 

 

 

  
When they stumble through the wet grass and Jyn shoves him up against the brick wall, his mouth is warm and wet, the sour of liquor and lime on his tongue, and her arms grasp him tight.  She's not sure but it almost feels like stars colliding.

 

 

 

  
Jyn wakes and freezes, eyes still closed.  There's a huff of breath sliding across her cheek and her tongue is so fuzzy all she can think through her burgeoning headache is water, but she doesn't dare twitch so much as a finger.

  
When she's certain that the person beside her is still solidly passed out, she allows one eyelid to slide open and then the other.

  
And then she stops breathing for at least an entire 30 seconds because _fuck_ if it isn't Mr. Anti-social himself pressed up against her and looking like a dream.

  
Could she be dreaming?

  
No, the night before slides snail-slow into the gaps in her brain.

  
Well, most of it, anyway.

  
The important parts are there.  The laughter and the kisses and the stars, all trussed up and paraded through a fog of liquor-induced delirium.  Just the thought of tequila makes her want to hurl.

  
And then she's thinking of water again.  And taking a piss.  And fuck, she's got to get out of this bed.

  
As slowly as she can, Jyn extricates herself from the hold Cassian has around her ribs (if there is a hollow feeling beneath where his arms used to be, she refuses to let herself think of why).

  
“Jyn?”

  
She turns to stone where she stands, but Cassian doesn't breathe her name a second time, only shifts and sighs and drifts back to his dreams.

  
Her clothes are wrinkled from sleep and wandering hands and god-knows-what-else, but they're still on and Jyn can't decide if that's a good thing or not.

  
(Later she will decide that it is, because she'd like to remember every moment of something more.)

  
(Christ, when did she turn into such a sap?)

  
The only thing missing is her sweater and so she steals a green blanket from Cassian’s floor in retribution.  She wraps it around her shoulders and steals one last glance at the boy in the bed, his black hair sticking up from his nest of blankets and his face burrowed into his pillows instead of the crook of her neck.

  
She ignores that dull pang from beneath her ribs and slips outside to phone Bodhi, who agrees to pick her up so that she doesn't die a slow death by freezing.

  
When he asks her what happened on the ride home, she shrugs and says nothing at all and that almost makes it true.

 

 

 

  
Jyn goes through a special sort of pain in order to get to class ridiculously early so that she could get a seat far from her usual one.

  
(She stops doing this halfway through the week when catches Professor Îmwe in a furtive match of tongue hockey with what looks like Coach Malbus, though she can't be entirely sure as she sprints away so fast that she nearly collapses in the hall.)

  
Not that it matters because Cassian doesn't show up for a single class the entire week.

  
Her ego isn't large enough to truly believe that this has anything to do with her but she can't stop herself from feeling just a small bit slighted anyway.

 

 

 

  
Jyn is sipping a large coffee in the cafe across town and failing not to fall asleep face-first into her textbook.

  
She blames the boredom of the text on her drooping eyelids and therefore on the fact that she doesn't see him until he slams a book onto her table.

  
“You got me _sick_.”

  
Cassian is glaring at her and doesn't seem to notice the stares they're getting from the other patrons of the cafe and so she pretends not to notice them either.

  
“Um, sorry?”  She says sounding anything but.

  
He snorts and Jyn admits to herself that he does sound quite nasally.  “Damn right you're sorry.  You owe me your notes from the week.”  Cassian says, then seems to mull a thought over in his head before adding, “And a coffee.”

  
Jyn tries her best to look indignant but can't muster the energy.  After all, she has just gotten over being sick herself and is fighting an uphill battle with a textbook much more experienced in the art of warfare than she could ever be.

  
“Fine.”

  
Cassian frowns, “Just ‘fine’, that’s it?”

  
“What’d you expect?  A fight?”

  
“Well…” He inclines his head and it's clear that yes, he'd expected a fight at the very least.  He doesn't seem to know what to make of this resigned Jyn and her waving white flag.

  
Jyn rolls her eyes and asks him to pick his poison.  He does and she fixes him with a steely look.  “Watch my stuff, especially the book.  That shit isn't cheap.”

  
He shakes his head but he's looking like he's swallowed a lemon from the effort he's putting into fighting back his smile as Jyn walks up to the register.

  
When the barista deposits Cassian’s coffee on the counter, Jyn takes it and shoves it into his hands.  She determinedly doesn't feel the brush of his long fingers on hers.

  
Before Cassian can blink, Jyn has scooped her textbook into her bag and slung it over her shoulder.

  
“Where are you going?”  He stares from the coffee in his hands, to Jyn who is already taking steps to the door.

  
She tilts her head at him and raises a brow.  “My notes aren't here, they're at home.” She says.  “So are you coming or what?”

  
She doesn't wait for him and he has to stumble after her to catch up.

 

 

 

  
The drive to her place is spent bickering over music and decidedly not on, well, _other things_.

  
They fall silent when they park and stay that way as they climb the stairs and Jyn slides her key in the lock.

  
Bodhi is sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of milk and a book that looks less like study material and more like recreation.  He looks from Jyn to Cassian and back again.

  
Jyn forces a smile.  “Cassian, this is my roommate Bodhi.  Good guy, majors in aerospace engineering, smarter than you.”  She says.  “Bodhi, this is Cassian-”

  
Bodhi doesn't wait for her to finish.  He's already standing up and tipping his mug back to his lips to finish it off.  Then he sets it in the sink and dusts off his hands. “Yeah, I've heard.”  He says, picking up his book.  “Listen, I just remembered, I have somewhere to be.  Text me if you need anything?”

  
Cassian raises his brows at her.

  
“Not a word.”  Jyn warns.

  
“So does this mean you tell people about me?” He quips without the blush she'd had when she said it.

  
Bodhi shouts a resolute, “Yes!”  Over his shoulder right before he disappears out the front door.

  
Jyn gives Cassian her back so that he doesn't her face flush, only half put out.  She stalks away from him and he chases at her heels.

  
“Can I help you?”  She snaps and spins to face him and instantly realizes her mistake.  He is much, much too close.

  
“No.”

  
His lips are gentle on hers, a question, and his fingers grasp her wrists and she hopes he can't feel her shake.

  
“Why did you leave?”  One of his hands trails from her cheek to her jaw.  She doesn't have to ask him what he means.

  
She closes her eyes for a beat.  Breathes in then out.  Makes a decision.  “I'm-I’m not used to this.”  There is a tremble in her voice and she inwardly curses at her weakness.  “I'm not used to people, you know, sticking around.”

  
Cassian presses her to him, tight, and her hands grasp him beneath his coat.  His breath is warm against her ear.  “Well, welcome home, Jynn.”  She thinks he whispers to her as he holds her safe and it feels like old light in a new room.

 

 

 

  
She wakes up to Cassian’s billowing laughter. She shoots him a glare and he shakes his head sorry.

  
“It's just… remember what you told me?”

  
“What?”

  
“Professor Îmwe cancelled class today.”

  
Jyn resists the urge to roll her eyes so hard her face twitches.  “Okay?”

  
“He's out sick.”  He says.  “And I happen to have a reliable source that says Coach Malbus is too.”

  
Jyn grins and smothers Cassian’s mirth with her mouth.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, criticisms, edits, etc. are welcomed. 
> 
>  
> 
> This is the first thing I've written in quite a while so it's bound to be a bit rough. 
> 
>  
> 
> I just wanted all my sweet children to be happy in another life.


End file.
